The present disclosure relates generally to rack management, and more particularly to systems and methods for management of computing devices mounted in a rack system.
Data centers with hundreds or thousands of computing devices often mount such computing devices into racks for organizational and space efficiency purposes. A single rack may contain a plurality of servers, a plurality of storage devices, one or more network appliances to connect the devices to a network, and a power supply to power the devices. Traditionally, computing devices mounted within a rack have been individually managed, for instance, with a keyboard and monitor physically attached to the devices, or remotely via baseboard management controllers within the devices. Although, management solutions have been devised that aggregate control over the computing devices in a rack, such solutions lacked functionality with respect to power management, thermal management, redundancy in the event of control hardware failure, and device detection and configuration. Accordingly, although existing rack management methods and structures have been satisfactory for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.